Class warfare bubbles in Chicago mayor race

Money matters in politics, but in the race for Chicago mayor, another valued commodity is the ability to claim a connection to working-class neighborhoods of bungalows and grit -- true or otherwise.

And so Miguel del Valle, the current Chicago city clerk, the other day proclaimed himself "the poorest candidate" in the race, a comment directly referring to his lack of fundraising prowess but also underscoring modest personal finances.

Rival Carol Moseley Braun, the former U.S. senator, has sought to spin a storyline about her chronic financial woes by portraying herself as a typical small-business owner laboring under a tough economy.

Gery Chico, a onetime City Hall powerbroker who went on to make millions with his own law firm, would rather focus on stories about growing up within whiffing distance of the old Stockyards, where he was once knocked off his bike by a runaway pig.

And Rahm Emanuel, who grew up on the North Shore and struck it rich as an investment banker between stints in government service, prefers to dwell on his birth in the Albany Park neighborhood and having an uncle who was a Chicago cop.

Simmering beneath the surface of the race for Chicago mayor is a subtle attempt at class warfare. Chicago is the "city that works" and "the city of neighborhoods," and each of the four major candidates has been attempting to sell themselves as a true neighborhood kid who later grew up and wanted to run the whole city.

Emphasizing the humble is a grand American political tradition that goes back deep into the 19th century, when President Andrew Jackson reveled in the image of being a representative of the common man instead of the gentry. As a candidate for president, Springfield lawyer Abraham Lincoln became "the Rail-Splitter." Across the nation, Richard J. Daley became known as the Chicago mayor who still lived just a block from the modest Bridgeport bungalow where he was born at 36th Street and Lowe Avenue.

Rare is the political candidate who doesn't argue he or she is better than the next guy. But the top contenders now hoping to replace Daley's son as mayor also are trying to argue they are more genuine Chicago than the next guy.

Del Valle's campaign Web site, for example, proclaims him as a "true Chicagoan." That is an apparent dig at Emanuel, the former Chicago congressman who moved temporarily to Washington to become White House chief of staff and whose residency for ballot qualification is now being challenged by opponents.

Del Valle also underscores his upbringing as the son of West Side factory workers and the product of Chicago public schools, leading to another dig at Chico.

"How many neighborhood guys have become millionaires off the city of Chicago?" Del Valle asked at a recent campaign stop in the Logan Square neighborhood. "Do you work for the special interests or do you work for the neighborhoods?"

For his part, Chico dismisses such criticism as the carping of those who "haven't been successful."

"Nobody gave me anything. ... I've worked very hard to get where I am," said Chico, who as a teenager worked at a gas station and a print shop owned by his father. "I come from a humble set of experiences in life. I have been able to work hard and be successful. I never forgot where I came from."

Part of the humility war among mayoral contenders is being waged through the lens of personal income tax returns. Braun's returns revealed her to be financially struggling, a status she sought to turn to her political favor.

"The reality is that unlike Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Chico, who traded on their government relations for vast riches when they left office, I did not," Braun said in a statement, stressing that a coffee and tea company she runs is hurting like so many small businesses. "I founded my small business, Ambassador Organics, not in a downtown office, but in a South Side neighborhood, guided by the same principles and values that I fought for in government."

No chapter in the life of Emanuel, the son of a physician, screams hardscrabble. But he disputes the notion he can't appreciate the needs and cares of average citizens.

"I represented a working-class district that elected me four consecutive times and every time with increasing numbers. It was a blue-collar, working-class district, the Bungalow Belt of Chicago," he said. "They knew I was not just a vote, but a voice for their values."

Emanuel's old 5th Congressional District did include many working-class neighborhoods on the North and Northwest sides and northwest suburbs, but it also took in some of the city's priciest real estate in Lincoln Park.

"We have common challenges, and my goal is to find how those unify us and make us stronger," he said. "And I think what has been (happening) too much is people are using issues or using backgrounds to pull us apart."